Thought for the day.

“Hindsight explains the injury that foresight would have prevented.”

Second and third hero classes, along with broader and more varied level eighty five end-game content, instead of Cataclysm?

7 thoughts on “Thought for the day.

  1. Psnacky

    Cataclysm was a good idea, just the implementation was wrong.

    They added all this great new leveling content but adjusted the leveling curve in such a way that they completely trivialized the whole thing. The revamp was an opportunity to bring back and retain the type of players who enjoy leveling, altoholics, those who see the game as a journey to end game (rather then starting at 85), etc. but instead they alienated us. They made it too easy, they made it too short.

    The biggest shame is that Blizzard’s failure to properly capitalize in an old-word revamp will be seen as a failure of the idea rather then of the execution and will prevent other developers from investing in similar ideas.

  2. Hirvox

    Revamp of the old world was long overdue, but it really was a halfbaked effort; Those zones that got completely rewritten are great, but most were simply streamlined. Even if it was comprehensively done, it wouldn’t have done anything for the players who were already content with their max-level characters. The same applies to hero classes. They can serve as an appetizer, but they’re not going to help much if the main course leaves you hungry.

  3. Tesh

    “they made it too short”

    You can always just meander around and see what changed. I’ve spent more time just exploring the world than anything else thanks to Cataclysm. There’s a whole world out there to explore if you don’t limit yourself to the yellow brick road.

    The Cataclysm revamp was and is a good idea. I think the biggest problem with the game is still structural, though; the divide between the “endgame” and the rest of the game. Trying to shove everyone into the endgame is the source of the speed “problem” as well as a variety of social ills.

  4. Psnacky

    @Tesh

    To clarify: I mean “too short” in a character progression versus content progression sense. The current leveling curve has players out-leveling content faster than it can be completed. There’s no adventure in exploring if there’s no risk to it.

  5. Rem

    I think Psnacky has a point. They had something very unique and exciting going with the revamp … but they couldn’t help also making it a vertical expansion. And vertical expansions … are something I’d really like to rant about at length some time.

  6. OghmaEh

    I think Blizzard just didn’t put enough into the expansion. I think the players expect the biggest and wealthiest developer to put out an expansion that is head and shoulders above the competition (and rightfully so) but didn’t get it.

    And off topic, but what is up with the random word generator to post? It’s either a weird old timey word or British slang. I love it, but it’s very odd.

  7. Melmoth Post author

    It seems like the general consensus is that the Cataclysm revamp was a great idea, but the execution was misjudged, be it because they made the content too easy to skip, or that they didn’t alter things enough to make the world feel as though it had really changed that much outside of the cosmetic. I do wonder whether they overestimated the proportion of people willing to roll new characters and level-up again in a world which is fundamentally no different from that of the 2004 original, and whether at this stage in the game’s life it would have been better to concentrate on providing content to the customers who had invested a great deal into characters already at the level cap. But hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing, as they say.

    @OghmaEh: Don’t mind the sentient KiaSA Captcha AI, it is somewhat eccentric but usually doesn’t bite.

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